Half-Day Leave
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Also known as: partial day leave, AM/PM leave, first-half / second-half leave
Half-day leave is time off booked for part of a working day — a morning (AM) or afternoon (PM) — that deducts half a day from the employee's leave balance.
Half-day leave lets an employee take part of a day off instead of a full day, usually split into a morning (AM) and afternoon (PM) portion around the middle of the working day. It deducts 0.5 of a day — or the equivalent hours — from the leave balance rather than a whole day.
Supporting half-days makes a leave tracker far more useful for the real reasons people need a few hours off: a dentist or doctor's appointment, a school run, a delivery, a viewing, or an afternoon to catch a flight. It also avoids the waste of booking a full day when only part of one is needed.
How many hours is a half day?
Half of the employee's working day. Divide their daily hours by two: a 7.5-hour day gives a 3.75-hour half day, an 8-hour day gives 4 hours. A part-timer on a shorter day gets a shorter half day, but it still counts as 0.5 of a day of leave.
| Working day | Example hours | Half day |
|---|---|---|
| 7.5 hours | 09:00–16:30 | 3.75 hours |
| 8 hours | 09:00–17:00 | 4 hours |
| 9 hours | 08:00–17:00 | 4.5 hours |
AM vs. PM half-days
A half-day is normally booked as either the morning (AM, the first half) or the afternoon (PM, the second half). Recording which half matters for coverage — a manager can see at a glance that someone is out in the morning but back after lunch.
Because offices work different hours, the half-day follows each office's working hours rather than a fixed clock time. In the Google or Outlook calendar entry Absenca writes, the split falls at noon when the working day spans it, otherwise halfway through the day: at NovaTech's Berlin office (08:00 to 16:30) a morning off is 08:00 to 12:00, while in London (09:00 to 17:30) it's 09:00 to 12:00.
How to request a half day
1) Check your balance and your team calendar for the day. 2) Request the day as a half day and choose morning or afternoon. 3) Add a short note if your manager needs context, then wait for approval as for any other leave.
Sample wording: "I'd like to take the afternoon of 14 March off as a half day of annual leave for a medical appointment. I'll be online until 12:00 and have handed the client call to Greta."
How the balance deducts a half day
When someone books a half-day, the tracker subtracts 0.5 days (or the matching number of hours) from their remaining balance instead of a full day. Over a year those halves add up precisely — two half-days equal one full day off — so entitlement is never quietly over- or under-counted.
The maths has to stay right when half-days combine with accrual, carry-over, and pro-rata entitlement for part-timers, which is exactly where manual spreadsheets tend to drift out of sync.
How Absenca handles half-days
In Absenca, employees pick a half-day and choose AM or PM when they request leave. The request flows through the normal approval process, the calendar and wallchart show the person as out for just that half, and their balance drops by exactly half a day. Half-days are on for every leave type unless an admin switches them off for one, so they work for annual leave, sick leave and TOIL alike.
Example
An employee with 12.5 days remaining books a Friday afternoon (PM) off for an appointment. Absenca deducts 0.5 days, leaving 12 days, and shows them as available until lunch on the team calendar.
See it in Absenca
Absenca supports AM/PM half-days and deducts exactly half a day from the right balance automatically — free for up to 10 people, and Pro is $37.50 a month for up to 50.
Frequently asked questions
- Do two half days equal one day?
- Yes. Each half day deducts 0.5 days, so a morning off on Monday and an afternoon off on Thursday use one full day of leave between them.
- How much leave does a half-day use?
- Half a day — 0.5 of a day, or the equivalent in hours based on the employee's working pattern.
- Can you take a half-day as sick leave or TOIL?
- Yes. In Absenca a half-day can be booked against annual leave, sick leave, or a TOIL balance — anywhere a partial-day absence makes sense — not just paid holiday.
- How is a half-day split between morning and afternoon?
- A half-day is booked as either AM or PM and costs 0.5 days either way. In Absenca the halves follow the working hours of the employee's office; when that day runs across midday, the synced calendar event splits at 12:00, otherwise halfway through the day.
Related terms
Stop calculating this by hand
Absenca handles accrual, carry-over, pro-rata, and public holidays automatically — so every balance is right without a spreadsheet. Free for up to 10 people.